The famous back four, all in their thirties when Wenger arrived, gave each other an old-fashioned look. Lee Dixon thought the new manager looked like a geography teacher. Tony Adams wondered: 'What does this Frenchman know about football? He's not going to be as good as George [Graham]. Does he even speak English properly?' Ray Parlour did impressions of Inspector Clouseau.

Training was different, to say the least. Wenger looked like a professor and worked according to the stopwatch. Sessions were shorter, sharper and timed to the second - unlike the sweaty, physical tests of endurance more common in traditional English regimes.

Wenger's attention to detail is legendary. He turned up the temperature on the team bus to keep players' muscles supple. He encouraged a period of silence at half time so the players relaxed and calmed themselves properly instead of ranting about the game. 'To work hard the whole week and then spoil it by not preparing properly is silly,' he says.

2: EAT YOUR GREENS

Ian Wright spends his time nowadays trying to help Britain's obese children to get fit. But when Wenger initially changed the menu at Arsenal, Wright turned up his nose and tutted about broccoli. The players' taste buds changed remarkably quickly. Vitamin supplements were gobbled. Alcohol was not banned but was discouraged - a brave move considering its perceived importance in team bonding in English dressing rooms. Wenger grew up above a pub in the Alsace and had seen enough to know alcohol was not an athlete's best friend.

He learned a lot about diet during his two years in Japan as manager of Grampus 8. 'It was the best diet I ever had,' he says. 'The whole way of life there is linked to health. Their diet is basically boiled vegetables, fish and rice. No fat, no sugar. You notice when you live there that there are no fat people. I think in England you eat too much sugar and meat and not enough vegetables.'

Stretching was another Wenger innovation. Before his first match in charge, away to Blackburn, he asked the players to practise muscle-honing poses in the hotel ballroom for half an hour. The combination of the new diet and stretching, backed up by masseurs and a trusted osteopath from France, is said to have added years to the careers of his veteran defence. Word of these methods spread throughout football. Even in the lower divisions the days of beans on toast and jam roly-poly in the canteen are long gone. As Iain Dowie points out, because of Wenger he now watches what his players eat. 'It's not good if they've had two vindaloos and a kebab.'

3: FENG-SHUI GYM

Wenger was horrified when he learned that Arsenal shared their training ground with students. After a fire destroyed the changing rooms, Wenger convinced the board to back his plans for a £12million state-of-the-art complex. He fretted over every detail. When the players come inside, off pitches that are exactly the same size as the playing surface in the stadium, they leave their boots and kit in a special room, so as to keep the internal space spotless. It is all very feng shui - plenty of natural light and a well positioned waterfall in the players' eyeline as they work out in the gym. Wenger even chose the cutlery and chairs in the canteen.

Once HQ was up and running, he and the club set to work on the new stadium project. Today every facet of the club he joined has been revolutionised.

4: KNOWLEDGE IS MONEY

In the past few years Arsenal have spent less than not just Chelsea, obviously, and Manchester United on team building, but also less than a clutch of teams who are still waiting to win the Premiership in the modern TV era. Liverpool, Newcastle and Tottenham regularly outspend Wenger. Once upon a time Leeds did, too.

He has made his reputation on his knowledge of overseas talent, informed by a network of scouts and contacts. He has brought players of the quality of Thierry Henry (at a cost of £10.5m), Patrick Vieira (£4m), Kolo Toure (£500,000) and Cesc Fabregas (nominal compensation) to Highbury.

Wenger's spending habits demonstrate not only an eye for a bargain, but a preference for creating and moulding a great player rather than buying one ready-made. Henry was a winger in a rut and Vieira, Toure and Fabregas were complete unknowns in England. Wenger's net average outlay on transfers is approximately £4.5m. Given the inflated price of English players, he has shown how success can come relatively cheaply if you look hard enough for young, unproven talent.

In Wenger's most profitable deal, Nicolas Anelka left for Real Madrid for £23m - almost 100 times his price to Arsenal as a teenager from Paris Saint-Germain.

But not all his transfer deals have been masterstrokes. Francis Jeffers was his biggest flop and, more recently, the record signing of Jose Antonio Reyes was hardly a success story. Still, the estimated £150m he has spent over a decade in England is less than Jose Mourinho's total during his two years so far at Chelsea.

5: FOREIGN AFFAIRS

'What does he know about English football, coming from Japan?' So sneered Sir Alex Ferguson when Wenger first commented on Manchester United's affairs. Ferguson's view was typical of many in the game who doubted the wisdom of appointing an overseas coach. With the failed experiment of Dr Josef Venglos at Aston Villa still fresh in the memory, the idea of a foreign manager winning the league was ridiculed, only for the Frenchman to achieve it in his first full season - with the FA Cup delivered on top. The Double was an emphatic answer to the critics in 1998, with the brio of Anelka, Vieira, Marc Overmars and Emmanuel Petit catching the eye in a way that cracked the image of 'Boring, boring Arsenal'.

Over the years Wenger has given credibility to foreign managers in the league least likely to embrace them. 'Island mentalities are historically mistrustful of foreign influences,' Wenger says. His impact paved the way for other foreign managers. Life under Rafa Benitez at Liverpool, Mourinho at Chelsea and Martin Jol at Tottenham is newsworthy because of their managerial decisions, not their accents. There have been 18 managers from outside Britain and Ireland employed by top-flight clubs. The average stay is two years. In 2003 Wenger was awarded an honorary OBE for services to British football, along with the then Liverpool manager Gerard Houllier. He is the second-longest-serving manager in the Premiership, after his old friend from the north.

6: DRINK? NOT FOR ME

The managers' post-match drink is an English tradition almost as revered as shaking hands at the final whistle. Sharing a glass or two was second nature to old-school managers such as Jim Smith, Harry Redknapp, Graeme Souness and Ferguson. Wenger said 'no thanks' because he simply did not see the point. Being wrapped up in the emotions of his own team does not put him in the mood for small talk with an adversary.

'He never comes for a drink after matches,' noted Ferguson, who called Wenger 'aloof'. 'He's the only manager in the Premiership not to do so. It would be good for him to accept the tradition.'

The Frenchman is not a gallant loser, either. This aspect of his personality has added edge to the great feuds of his professional life. Strident opposition to Bernard Tapie's Marseille in France has been followed by a string of rivalries in England. He tends not to exchange pleasantries with Mourinho, Sam Allardyce and, as of last season, Jol, but his duel with Ferguson has been generously loaded with spice.

Wenger's intelligent use of language, coupled with his team's progress, meant that he was the first manager to take on Fergie, whose status as the premier influence in English football had been unchallenged for several years. Their verbal jousting reached a peak when the Manchester United manager claimed his team were the best in England when they had fallen out of the Champions League in 2003. 'Everyone thinks they have the prettiest wife at home,' quipped Wenger. He describes it as 'a little bit of comedy', even though there have been occasions when their relationship has seemed darker than that. Now that Mourinho has given them a common enemy there is a suspicion that they secretly rather like one another and are more alike than they would care to admit.

7: PASSPORTS

On 12 October 1996, Wenger selected his first Arsenal team for a game at Blackburn. It comprised nine England internationals (a tenth came off the bench), one Wales international and one player from overseas, Patrick Vieira, who was making his third Premiership start for the Gunners having been bought on Wenger's recommendation while the main man was seeing out his contract in Japan.

Fast forward almost a decade, and the Arsenal team that scored a famous victory at the Bernabeu in the Champions League contained not one Englishman. It was contentious all right. A triumph that might have earned them praise back home was in fact greeted with scorn.

'I saw a headline saying Arsenal are flying the flag for Britain,' said Alan Pardew at the time, 'but I kind of wondered where that British involvement actually was when I looked at their team.' PFA boss Gordon Taylor added: 'It's an English club but not an English success. It's probably a greater reflection of youngsters from France and elsewhere in Europe.'

Wenger was disappointed with the criticism. Funnily enough his two English mainstays were, for one reason or another, his least reliable players. Ashley Cole had been flirting with Chelsea and Sol Campbell had walked out of a game at half time suffering from mental strain. In general, the English players he has bought in the past - such as Jeffers, Richard Wright, Matthew Upson and Jermaine Pennant - have not worked out as well as his imports.

But the more pertinent point for Wenger is a fundamental belief in good players, rather than nationalities. 'We represent a football club which is about values and not passports,' is his maxim.

This season, the squad list on the back of Arsenal's programme depicts the flags of 14 different nationalities. The two Englishmen at the bottom of the list are squad players - rookie defender Justin Hoyte and handle-with-care teenager Theo Walcott. When both were on the pitch at the tail end of Arsenal's midweek win over Porto in the Champions League, their fans broke into ironic chants of 'Ingerlund'. The song is often heard at Arsenal home games, always coming from the opposition.

8: THIERRY HENRY

One of the best gifts Wenger has given to English football is his iconic No 14. Best player ever in the Premiership? You could argue for Roy Keane, Eric Cantona, and Dennis Bergkamp, while perhaps John Terry, Steven Gerrard or Wayne Rooney will stake a claim in future.

Henry's electric ability to entertain has resulted in a very rare accomplishment. Not many Arsenal players are almost universally popular. 'The best player on the planet,' said Gerrard. 'Already one of the all-time greats,' said Ruud van Nistelrooy when he was at Old Trafford. 'I tell my kids in the academy at Newcastle to watch him,' said Peter Beardsley. Henry had standing ovations from Portsmouth, Fulham and Aston Villa fans last season. The football writers were impressed enough to vote him Footballer of the Year an unprecedented three times and he has not been far away from the European and World awards.

Henry recognises how Wenger 'changed my life'. Having already given him a debut as a teenager when the pair were together at Monaco, bringing him to England and playing him as striker instead of winger was the making of an extraordinary talent. Henry and Wenger have such a strong relationship that

Arsenal were able to hang on to their brightest star when Barcelona came calling this summer. Henry's continued presence is something for which even those who don't like Wenger should be grateful.

9: RESTRICTED VIEW

'I did not see it' is a catchphrase that has entered the English football lexicon. Wenger's absurd excuse to exempt him or his team from commenting on any misdemeanour had become a cliche quite early in his Arsenal reign. His team amassed 52 red cards in his first seven seasons, though there has been a marked improvement lately and Arsenal have finished in the top two of the fair-play league in the past three seasons. His selectively bad eyesight was always an obvious defence mechanism. Wenger chooses when to see clearly and is never short of an opinion when it suits his team.

Who is the real Arsene Wenger, then? What is the man behind the glasses really like? He has given very little away and does not perform well in front of the television cameras.

Although he is much more convivial company than his image suggests, Wenger is far more concerned about keeping away from the limelight than courting popularity. Few personal details about Wenger are in the public domain and many football fans in England are unaware he has a wife and daughter. He jokes that he only knows how to get to three places - Highbury, the training ground in Hertfordshire and his house, roughly halfway between the two.

10: P38 W26 D12 L0

In 2002, having won a second Double in four years, Wenger was asked: 'What happens next?' Could he go an entire season without losing? 'It's not impossible. I know it will be difficult, but if we keep the right attitude it's possible we can do it,' he replied. About a month later, a lad called Wayne Rooney lashed in a last-minute winner for Everton at Goodison Park. Then Arsenal lost to Blackburn. And Southampton. And Manchester United. All before Christmas.

But the prediction that it could be done was only one year out. In 2003...#8209;04, they emulated Preston North End's Invincibles of 1888-89. Nobody thought it could be done in the modern game until Wenger guided his team through a perfect procession. What made it even more impressive was the style with which it was achieved. Fans called it 'Wengerball'. There are not many finer sights than Wengerball in full flow. Then again, there are not many more excruciating sights than Wengerball on a bad day. Arsenal's commitment to passing leaves them vulnerable to teams with strong organisation and sometimes they look feeble.

But Wenger is a stubborn man who will not change his footballing ideal. In his very first press conference he outlined what he wanted to achieve at Arsenal. 'No team can be attractive and fantastic in every match, but my message to the fans is come here and be happy.'

He has just about hit that target.

WENGER'S WORDS OF WISDOM

On class

'You weren't world class when Arsenal signed you' - reply in 2004 when Patrick Vieira said Arsenal had failed to sign any world-class players.

On waistlines

'I lived for two years in Japan and it was the best diet I ever had. Their diet is basically boiled vegetables, fish and rice. No fat, no sugar. You notice when you live there that there are no fat people. I think in England you eat too much sugar and meat and not enough vegetables'

On style

'The target for every manager and for Mourinho as well - I think he would share that with me - is to try to entertain people'

On feuding

'A little bit of a comedy'- Wenger on his relationship with Sir Alex Ferguson